United Rail Passenger Alliance

Volume 3 Number 6

1. The Oxford University Press dictionary teaches us that a rumor is “a currently circulating story or report of unverified or doubtful truth.” Okay, now that the explanation is out of the way, let’s get down to the actual rumors floating around about Amtrak. Continue Reading »

Volume 3 Number 5

Re-Thinking America’s Rail Passenger Service

by Andrew C. Selden

Amtrak is at another of its many cross-roads: financially hopeless, working with an interim “acting” CEO, strapped to irreconcilable strategies (to provide abundant social services in its corridor markets, yet expected to produce tolerable financial results of operations overall, with an underdeveloped interregional business that it doesn’t understand or appreciate and supports halfheartedly for the wrong reasons). Many of its management systems are ineffectual or unreliable, according to the October 2005 GAO analysis.

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Volume 3 Number 4

1. As said before, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. Read what URPA Vice President and guiding light Andrew Selden has to say about Amtrak’s latest misadventure regarding dining car service on long distance trains. Continue Reading »

Volume 3 Number 3

1. URPA Vice President and guiding light Andrew Selden has cracked the secret and elusive Amtrak accounting code for creating the false profits shown on the Northeast Corridor. Read on to learn further why so many people are so nervous about having real, bona fide business people looking at Amtrak’s steamy books.By Andrew Selden

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Volume 3 Number 2

1. There is hope, after all. Last week, Amtrak’s Vice President, Transportation left the company. The gentleman in question is someone who had been with Amtrak for a number of years, all in high level posts, including as one of the last presidents of Amtrak Intercity before it was folded back into the previous corporate structure. We are all grateful the gentleman is pursuing other avenues of employment. Could this be the beginning of a process of sweeping out so many of the failed executives at Amtrak and beginning a search of competence instead of good old boy connections? Could Amtrak Acting President David Hughes now be holding his managers personally responsible for their areas of authority, and demanding more than “business as usual?”If this move is the result of Mr. Hughes taking action to improve Amtrak, then more power to him. The job of Vice President, Transportation is a major post within Amtrak that requires a combination of railroad skills and a complete understanding of the needs of passengers. The people who run the railroad - make the trains run, staff the mechanical forces, etc. have to understand the big picture beyond just making sure all the components for a full train consist exist. They must also understand the needs of passengers and onboard services crews, and how the operating and mechanical forces meet those needs for the convenience of passengers, not the operating department.
2. There was even more welcome news last week from the White House. President Bush, using recess appointments, reappointed Floyd Hall and Enrique Sosa as members of the Amtrak Board of Directors. They were originally appointed nearly two years ago in a similar scenario, and the Senate has shamelessly yet to act on their confirmations.There is suspicion that Democrat members of the Senate (euphemistically referred to as “Amtrak supporters”) have blocked the confirmation of Mr. Hall and Mr. Sosa for various political gain reasons. What are these Senators afraid of with these two well-qualified nominees? Are the Senators afraid that Mr. Hall and Mr. Sosa, along with Chairman of the Board David Laney are going to bring standard business practices to Amtrak? Are they afraid that these astute businessmen - well respected professionals each and every one in their chosen fields - are going to expose the “follow the money trail” to the Northeast Corridor where so many federal funds are unnecessarily used on what at best could be described as a limited regional interest and poorest choice for investment of federal capital into Amtrak?

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Volume 3 Number 1

1. Happy New Year to one and all. Thank you for taking time last year to read This Week at Amtrak, and thank you to those who sent their thoughts, suggestions, and comments. We all look forward to 2006 as a time of progress and change for Amtrak. Last year brought a welcome storm of debate about the future of Amtrak; the first lengthy dialogue heard from so many quarters since Amtrak came into being on May 1, 1971.Hopefully, the debate on the future of Amtrak and decisions made about the company and, indeed, the domestic transportation policy of the United States will focus primarily on Amtrak’s original mission of providing a reliable and robust national passenger railroad system, and not a series of disjointed regional corridors which have no national value.

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